Surgeons enter with the primary interest of achieving the best care for their patients, and may have an attitude which is disinclined toward changing accepted technologies. Surgeons are not the greatest potential group for marketing focus given that some significant percentage will lack the authority to choose venders in a larger healthcare system. Hospitals should constitute a larger part of the potential market. This target is also divided between general practice and specialization of hip implant procedures. Most hospitals are part of larger healthcare networks today, making decisions typically centralized and highly dependent upon shared economic interests with selected vendors. Thus, an attitude of resistance to change may also persist here, though penetration of specialty facilities in particular is a positive path to realizing a greater sale potential.

The two overlapping but distinct targets of healthcare dealer and stocking distributor are firms that specialize in identifying profitable and reliable medical products such as ours and making them available to such clients as hospitals and surgeons. This makes such firms the key target and the greatest access...

The attitude of such firms is that profitability is achieved through product diversification. This makes smaller manufacturers such as ours more viable through such outlets, ultimately leading to a penetration of the target markets noted above as being particularly difficult to permeate.
Table a:

Target Market

Psychographics

Benefits Sought

Information Sources

Product Usage

Surgeons

Interest in providing patients

Greater treatment success

Industry publication

Surgical application

Hospitals

Interest in serving community

Better patient outcome patterns

Direct contact

Surgical application

Healthcare Dealers

Interest in appealing to wide client base

More profitable operation

Product Conventions

Resale

Stocking Distributors

Interest in maintaining high demand product

More profitable operation

Product Conventions

Resale